Edson Lobato, a Brazilian soil fertility scientist, was awarded the 2006 World Food Prize for his role in helping transform the Cerrado into productive cropland. Adding to the contributions of fellow 2006 World Food Prize Laureates, Dr. A. Colin McClung of the United States, and Alysson Paolinelli of Brazil, Lobato helped make agricultural development possible in the Cerrado, a region named from Portuguese words meaning “closed, inaccessible land.” [1]
Tocantins is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is the newest state, formed in 1988 and encompassing what had formerly been the northern two-fifths of the state of Goiás. Tocantins covers 277,620.91 square kilometres (107,190.03 sq mi) and had an estimated population of 1,496,880 in 2014. Construction of its capital, Palmas, began in 1989; most of the other cities in the state date to the Portuguese colonial period. With the exception of Araguaína, there are few other cities with a significant population in the state. The government has invested in a new capital, a major hydropower dam, railroads and related infrastructure to develop this primarily agricultural area. The state has 0.75% of the Brazilian population and is responsible for 0.5% of the Brazilian GDP.
An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics.
José Bento Renato Monteiro Lobato was one of Brazil's most influential writers, mostly for his children's books set in the fictional Sítio do Picapau Amarelo but he had been previously a prolific writer of fiction, a translator and an art critic. He also founded one of Brazil's first publishing houses and was a supporter of nationalism.
The World Food Prize is an international award recognizing the achievements of individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world. Conceived by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Norman Borlaug and established in 1986 through the support of General Foods, the prize is envisioned and promoted as the Nobel or the highest honors in the field of food and agriculture. It is now administered by the World Food Prize Foundation with support from numerous sponsors. Since 1987, the prize has been awarded annually to recognize contributions in any field involved in the world food supply, such as animal science, aquaculture, soil science, water conservation, nutrition, health, plant science, seed science, plant pathology, crop protection, food technology, food safety, policy, research, infrastructure, emergency relief, and poverty alleviation and hunger.
The Cerrado is a vast ecoregion of tropical savanna in eastern Brazil, being present in the states of Goiás, Mato Grosso do Sul, Mato Grosso, Tocantins, Maranhão, Piauí, Bahia, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná and the Federal District. The core areas of the Cerrado biome are the Brazilian highlands – the Planalto. The main habitat types of the Cerrado consist of forest savanna, wooded savanna, park savanna and gramineous-woody savanna. The Cerrado also includes savanna wetlands and gallery forests.
The Kalungas are Brazilians that descend from people who freed themselves from slavery, and lived in remote settlements in Goiás state, Brazil. The Kalungas are one group of Quilombola, or people of African origin who live in hinterland settlements founded during the period of escaped slaves. Most of the approximately 5,000 Kalungas, who are of mixed African and indigenous ancestry, live in very poor conditions. In Zambia, the name Kalunga is of Bantu origin and means "Hunter or accurate hunter".
Milad Alexandre Mack Atala is a Brazilian chef of Palestinian and Irish ancestry, who runs the restaurant D.O.M. in São Paulo. In May 2012, D.O.M. was rated the 4th best restaurant in the world by the S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants, published by Restaurant magazine. His establishment also holds the title of "Acqua Panna Best Restaurant In South America." He's known for transforming traditional Brazilian dishes, adapting French and Italian culinary techniques to native Brazilian ingredients. Atala also hosted a television show on Brazilian TV channel GNT. In 2013, he founded Atá, an institute about relation with food, with Roberto Smeraldi and Carlos Alberto Ricardo, among others. In 2019, Atala and his institute were accused of misappropriating the name "Cerrado vanilla" by registering it as a commercial name at the Brazilian Institute for Industrial Property (INPI), without prior consultation to rural communities who traditionally use the ingredient in their food cultures. In 2020, Atala was accused of sexual harassment by a former employee.
The wildlife of Brazil comprises all naturally occurring animals, plants, and fungi in the South American country. Home to 60% of the Amazon Rainforest, which accounts for approximately one-tenth of all species in the world, Brazil is considered to have the greatest biodiversity of any country on the planet. It has the most known species of plants (60,000), freshwater fish (3,000), amphibians (1,188), snakes (430), insects (90,000) and mammals (775) It also ranks third on the list of countries with the most bird species (1,971) and the third with the most reptile species (848). The number of fungal species is unknown. Approximately two-thirds of all species worldwide are found in tropical areas, often coinciding with developing countries such as Brazil. Brazil is second only to Indonesia as the country with the most endemic species.
The Brazilian gracile opossum is a species of small opossum from Brazil.
The curl-crested jay is a species of jay native to South America.
Cerradomys is a genus of oryzomyine rodents from eastern Bolivia, Paraguay, and central Brazil found in cerrado, Caatinga and Gran Chaco habitats.
Lobato may refer to:
Alysson Paolinelli was a Brazilian agronomic engineer and public official who received the 2006 World Food Prize for his role in transforming the Cerrado into productive cropland. Paolinelli was Brazil's Minister of Agriculture from 1974 to 1979.
Dr. Andrew Colin McClung was an American scientist who received the 2006 World Food Prize for his role in helping transform the Cerrado – a region of vast, once infertile tropical high plains stretching across Brazil – into highly productive cropland. McClung's research on the soil degradation plaguing central Brazil showed that acidity, toxic levels of aluminum, and deficiencies of several micronutrients in the soil limited plant growth. Moreover, McClung developed a treatment which employed dolomitic lime to eliminate the aluminum toxicity of the soils, supply calcium and magnesium, and modify the availability of other nutrients.
Gurdev Singh Khush is an Agronomist and Geneticist who, along with mentor Henry Beachell, received the 1996 World Food Prize for his achievements in enlarging and improving the global supply of rice during a time of exponential population growth.
Caryocar brasiliense, known as pequi or "souari nut", like its congeners, is an edible fruit popular in some areas of Brazil, especially in Centerwestern Brazil.
The Old Downtown Des Moines Library is a historic building in downtown Des Moines, Iowa, United States that was built in 1903. It was individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and became a contributing property in the Civic Center Historic District in 1988. The building ceased to be a library in 2006 and now houses the Norman E. Borlaug | World Food Prize Hall of Laureates for the World Food Prize.
Sítio do Picapau Amarelo is a series of 23 fantasy novels written by Brazilian author Monteiro Lobato between 1920 and 1940. The series is considered representative of Brazilian children's literature and as the Brazilian equivalent to children's classics such as C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia and L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz series. Lobato's single original adult fiction, a sci-fi novel entitled O Presidente Negro set in the far future, would not achieve the same popularity of Sítio. The concept was introduced in Monteiro Lobato's 1920 novel A Menina do Narizinho Arrebitado, and was later republished as the first chapter of Reinações de Narizinho, which is the first novel of the actual Sítio series. The main setting is Sítio do Picapau Amarelo, where a boy, a girl and their living and thinking toys enjoy exploring adventures in fantasy, discovery and learning. On several occasions, they leave the ranch to explore other worlds such as Neverland, the mythological Ancient Greece, an underwater world known as the Clear Waters Kingdom, and outer space. Sítio is often symbolized by the character of Emília, Lobato's most famous creation alongside Jeca Tatu.
"Mongrel complex", or alternatively "mutt complex", is an expression used to refer to a collective inferiority complex reportedly felt by many Brazilians when comparing Brazil and its culture to other parts of the world, primarily the developed world, as the reference to a "mongrel" carries negative connotations attributed by Brazilians to the racist perception of most Brazilians being racially mixed as well as lacking in desirable cultural refinement.
Mercedes Bustamante is a biologist born in Chile. Most of her work takes place in the savannah regions in Brazil called the cerrado biome. Her area of interests are studying large scale impacts on the environment, land usage and biogeochemistry. Since 1994 she has been a professor at the University of Brasília (UnB), where she is currently the Graduate Coordinator of the Ecology Department. She is a member of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group.